Marc Myers writes daily on jazz legends and legendary jazz recordings

July 25, 2010

Sunday Wax Bits

Can jazz survive Generation F? The "F" here stands for
"flighty," and anyone who has watched people in their 20s listen to music today knows what I'm talking about. Songs in iTunes libraries and on iPods serve mostly as white noise for this demographic group. Music is what you put on while working, organizing photos on your computer, i-Chatting or texting. [Image: Aleksander Bak]

This generation's electronic multitasking skills were honed as its members matured with the personal computer. Show me a 21-year-old today and I'll show you someone who can do a half-dozen things at once on the computer—combining work, socializing, videos and music. While iTunes injected music into the computer workspace (desktop), work always is the primary focus. [Image: Brad Norr]

This isn't a new phenomenon. Back in the early 1950s, radio
was much more popular and influential than TV among those who owned both. That's because people could drive, clean house, read the paper and work in the yard while the radio was on. The same couldn't be said for TV, which demanded your full attention.

But the way music is consumed today among young people doesn't bode well for jazz. In
addition to treating music as sound rather than art, Generation F rarely listens to an entire track, let alone an entire album. The record industry has been grappling with this album problem since the arrival of the digital download. Buyers cherry pick what they want for 99 cents rather than purchase entire albums. Which means most personal iTunes libraries are vessels for thousands of individual songs. Melody fatigue sets in fast and fingers commonly click for the next song before a track is through.

Jazz is listening music. You need to pay attention and become absorbed by what the musicians are doing, how
they're communicating and why what they're doing is special. Jazz has never been mass market music—it's not ideal for dancing, its melodies are complicated to listen to, and its history is too deep for a casual relationship. Now add a generation that hasn't been trained to concentrate on what they're listening to and it's hard to see how jazz will be perceived as meaningful going forward by a large percentage of this group.

One can only guess how the next generation coming up will consume music.

Ada Louise Huxtable. Following my article in last week's Wall Street Journal on New York City office lobbies from the 1950s
and early 1960s—and breaking news about the Time & Life Building (here)—I received a lovely email from esteemed architecture critic and historian Ada Louise Huxtable:

"Wonderful piece—who else is a connoisseur of those lobbies and could have written so delightfully and knowledgeably about them! So glad the Wall Street Journal gave it such a great display. Liked the anchoring quotes, too. They added that extra stamp of 'authoritative comment.' And you may have scooped the other papers by uncovering the new locale. Lovely."

There's nothing like hearing words of praise from a person whose work you've long admired. [Pictured (top) Philip Johnson and Mies Van Der Rohe with the Seagram Building model in 1955; (above) Ada Louise Huxtable in the 1970s]

Paul Wood. Architect Paul Wood sent along a swell email from his home in France on my Mad Men piece, as well as the following photo he took of Lever House in 1965 from the Seagram Building's plaza on Park Ave.:

Radio tracks. Reader David Perrine sent along a link to a site called Jango that lets you listen to full tracks of albums. Here's a link to Brettina, an album I wrote about last week. From there, you can click on different artists to hear other material.

Billy Taylor. Yesterday was Billy Taylor's birthday. He's 89. Back in 1958, Billy appeared regularly on The Subject Is Jazz, a television show showcasing jazz artists of the period. This clip, courtesy of Bret Primack, is one of the most fascinating in the series and features George Russell, Billy Taylor and Bill Evans:

CD discoveries of the week: Brazilian organist Fabio Fonseca's CD Opus Samba connects with the early 1960s, when Hammond B3 masters from Rio de Janeiro like
Walter Wanderley used the instrument to great effect. Like Wanderley, Fonseca adds zesty flavor and syncopation to the samba. Fonseca's Vida Vira Vida is of this tradition, as is Samba da Copa. This CD has summer written all over it, and Fonseca's command of the instrument and authentic Brazilian flavor is uplifting. The entire album is a blast and was produced by Arnaldo DeSouteiro, with liner notes by Doug Payne. You'll find Fabio Fonseca's Opus Samba as a CD and download here.

Most good baritone saxophonists wind up sounding like Gerry Mulligan. Which is a good thing, since Mulligan perfected the instrument's jaunty-basso grunt as a superb small-group player. Adam
Schroeder certainly has Mulligan's intonation and zig-zaggy feel on his debut CD, A Handful of Stars. But Schroeder has something else: A passion for what makes this instrument special—a big, bossy sound that swaggers on swingers and mopes on ballads. You hear Schroeder's feel on I Don't Want to be Kissed, Quincy Jones' Jessica's Birthday and Barry Harris' Nascimento. You'll find Adam Schroeder's A Handful of Starshere.

Oddball album cover of the week: Not satisfied to simply
place a model or two on the cover with vibist Terry Gibbs, the art director of this LP had the models place the steel keys in places the male consumer's eye was sure to look. I'm not sure how the two mallets under the floor-model's chin enhances the composition, but then again the felt-tipped sticks make about as much sense as the hood and gloves she's wearing.

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Those readers wanting to hear more of Adam Schroeder's fine playing can sample this Jack Nimitz CD, which features a previously unreleased Creed Taylor-produced Jack Nimitz / Bill Harris session from the 1950's along with a recent session with the two bari sax men.

Oh man! Marc, you sure know how to push my buttons. As a stubborn and uncompromising musical fossil, I will never understand the music beloved by Gen F. Not that I haven't tried. I have XM satellite radio, and so am able to sample lots of different music. Sorry, I just can't listen to most of what the young people are digging.

But will the Gen F'ers (unwittingly perhaps) end up killing jazz? Did rock 'n roll kill jazz?
I believe jazz will stand the test of time. Great music always does.

Yes Marc, the question on weather generation F as you call them will make any difference on how jazz survives is worth pondering.I agree with you that at first sight it does not look good. Of course today does not compare with the golden age of Jazz in terms of audiences.
But unfortunately it's been going downhill ever since. Many factors here which I won't go into. On the other hand for people like me which over the years has bought his fair share of LP's, CD's and downloads, the digital age is the best. Because of the easy access to music. Jazz will always be here. More people can hear it.

In my experience, very few baritone saxophonists (good or not so good) ended up sounding like Gerry Mulligan. Even an avowed Mulligan emulator like Kerry Strayer sounds like himself. I suspect this is because Mulligan (whatever his other many virtues) was not that highly skilled an instrumentalist (though he improved a good deal in his later years), and some of his key traits on the horn (that hoarse, sore-thumb register break) were his alone almost of necessity. I think that a more common model for baritone saxophonists since he came on the scene was the late Pepper Adams.

another F'er here. understand the note on listeners and listening. curious what you think about some new jazz - is the music itself actually suffering? jose james, esperanza spalding, robert glasper... these newbies do anything for you? Too F'y?

Have to disagree with you on this one, Marc--while there are plenty of vapid youngsters these days, I'm sure that's been true of every generation. You don't mention what is to me a big counter to your argument (and you may or may not agree), but I would be very surprised if there were not more extremely skilled and creative jazz musicians, from all corners of the world, then there have ever been before, and a good chunk of them are in the age group you describe. They love their iPods, and their Twitter, and they can play the hell out of Giant Steps. Now, one could argue about the artistic merit of these players (as Jason Marsalis did recently), but I don't think you can accuse them of a lack of studiousness or attention span. Now, the fact that the demand (the audience) for jazz has been steadily dwindling as the supply (players) increases simultaneously is disturbing, and the general cultural trends you describe may play a role--but such a generalized condemnation of a generation (a generation which includes people like Aaron Parks, Ambrose Akinmusire, and countless other young monster players, as well as the people who download their music) is overly pessimistic in my opinion. (And I'm a pessimist!)

One can't fault all the Gen X, Y and F'ers en masse. That's just too much of a truncated generalization. I think many people see jazz as irrelevant to the times and that is unfortunate for jazz, jazz musicians and the people who look at jazz that way. The marketing of jazz has probably done more harm to it than anything else. It's a means of free soul expression that covers infinite territory. I believe that the menu options of the digital diaspora will ultimately be good for people like Stitt, Roland Kirk et al.

Mr. Myers,
Have you ever had a conversation with a jazz fan or musician under 30? If you haven't, let's talk. If you have, I have no idea how you came to these conclusions. I am a bit offended by your gross generalization, as I have been living in the world that you are trying to describe and trust me, it doesn't look anything like what you think it does.
-Alex

I have to disagree with the extreme over-generalizational premise that multi-tasking has lead to the death of a jazz-consuming populace. As you yourself stated, multi-tasking has existed for decades, in the form of performing chores while listen to radio. On the other hand, I spent most of my teens in the early '90s actively listening to the radio in my bedroom. Music was the activity, not background noise. Nothing changed as I turned to CDs and mp3s. Just because new digital formats and delivery devices are conducive to effectively ignoring the music while playing doesn't mean everyone in my generation does that. Those of us that love music continue to listen to it.

In addition, jazz--and other "difficult" music--has always been a niche. It's not like the masses ate up Mingus and Sun Ra in favor of Elvis and The Beatles. Simpler melodies--not in an of themselves a bad thing--will always attract a larger audience. But an awful lot of people in my generation like Dirty Projectors and Menomena and Konono No. 1. Not exactly simpleton music.

I enjoy some jazz, but I happen to think there are more interesting artists in the various pop and rock and roll subgenres. That's an opinion and a preference. But I think it's wrong to snobbishly enlist such extreme generalities as reasons as to why today's music-listening generation is somehow lesser than previous ones simply because we have different tastes.

Marc, I respectfully disagree with you, on the fear and foreboding disappearance of jazz in the hands of this "Generation F that you call flighty." I think it's completely celebratory that jazz is accessible and digital for anyone of any age to put on the Ipods and mix it up with other genres and share it as well. Perhaps the F in generation should stand for free choice. And the internet and ipods and blogs like yours and websites like mine (http://jazzcorner.com) ensure that jazz will propser. You should hear what's on my ipod: from Fela to Franklin (Aretha) to Freeman (Von) (just keepin in stride with the F alliteration) That's the beauty of ipods, IMO. Also it should be noted that many of the Generation F you refer to are the very musicians that are mixing it up and are continuing to create improvised music and helping ensure the proliferation of jazz. I don't believe you can turn many people on to jazz by instilling that this music needs full concentration and seperating it from other kinds of music.
Isn't your blog just a series of tracks?

The very nature of your fear and loathing of new modes of distributing and listening to music is more contributory to what you seemingly feel is a lack of growth in Jazz as well as its preservation. I quite respectfully, totally disagree.
always my best
Lois

About

Marc Myers writes on music and the arts for The Wall Street Journal. He is author of "Why Jazz Happened" (Univ. of California Press). Founded in 2007, JazzWax is a Jazz Journalists Association's "Blog of the Year" winner.